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Oranje distraught with grief in 2008

December 25th, 2008 | By: Jan | 20 Comments »

It could have been so good for Oranje… At long last, Van Basten was able to gel the wonderful talents of The Netherlands into a fit, footballing machine. World Champs Italy and Runner-up France were witness to that force at the 2008 EC.

But, instead of a Spain – Oranje finals, the Dutch found their exit against Hiddink’s Russia. There are several football-reasons why the eager Russians were able to upset Clockwork Orange, but there was also the Boulah-drama. There is no coaching handbook covering that particular aspect of the game.

A reconstruction…

The Dutch players are chilling out in their hotel in Lausanne. Dirk Kuyt, Arjen Robben and Andre Ooijer are playing “Kolonisten van Catan” in Kuyt’s room. Sweden is playing Russia in the background. In other spots in the hotel, different groups enjoy the game on tv or are chilling out. It’s 20.52.

Kuyt’s door is open, as always. When Robben wants to build his city, team coordinator Hans Jorritsma enters. “Something happened,” he says, with a serious look on his face.

Khalid’s daughter Anissa Boulahrouz passed away. What doctors first called “a complication” turned out to be a personal drama.

The three young dads tumble from their pink cloud. Oranje won three games, sensationally at the EC. Even the B-team didn’t have any trouble with tough Romania. This was to be Oranje’s EC. But the game is being put away, the telly is turned off.

“I didn’t realize how serious the news was. I was so focused at watching Sweden – Russia, because our next opponent would be the winner of the game. Jorritsma really had to repeat what he said to me. Then it sunk in… This was a huge moment… We packed it in and went to the hospital,” says Marco van Basten of the situation six months onwards.

Press officer Jansma and skipper Edwin van der Sar are already in the car, on their way. Jansma’s mobile phone rings. “Van Nistelrooy had just heard what happened and implored us to turn back to pick him up. He was adamant he could come with us, so we turned around,” remembers Jansma.

In the hospital in Lausanne, they meet the Boulahrouz family, Robin van Persie, Nigel de Jong and Ibi Afellay, who had permission to be in the hospital with Khalid and Sabia. Their daughter was born three months early and would only live 1,5 hours.

Van Basten arrives per taxi. Jansma: “We spent time with the Boulahrouz family and Anissa. That was impressive. They wanted to share their grief with us. It was huge. The bonding, the sharing…football was out of the window. No one really cared anymore. Ruud and Edwin were in the hallway and when the hospital personnel recognized them, they started to take pictures of the players. Ruud exploded. It didn’t have anything to do with football or anything…it was about friends, loss, warmth, consolation…”

Raf van der Vaart and Dirk Kuyt had experienced similar complications with their babies, but they narrowly escaped the same fate. Kuyt immediately called his wife. “It’s something I just had to share. The whole group was down. First you’re floating on the successes and then you’re all back on Earth with a bang,” says Kuyt.

Khalid Boulahrouz still can’t talk about it, six months later. He can’t even remember much. “It was one big haze. I’m still in the middle of the processing of it all. It could take years for me to handle this. It took years after my dad had died. I can’t talk about it, I’m sorry.”

It all started on the Wednesday. Boulahrouz was in training and got the call to go to hospital. A police officer took the player who was spotted by a reporter. This gave fuel to numerous internet rumors, the first items that hit the blogs were about Boulah being caught taking doping.

Jansma: “I wanted to protect the family and decided to shut my mouth for a couple of hours, but when the rumors became to outrageous I called my Dutch contacts and told them it was about Khalid’s daughter.”

That night, Boulah doesn’t return to the hotel. The next day, the player returns and Van Basten has a decision to make. Will he keep the player in the group or is it better to allow him to leave.

Van Basten discusses it with his staff. His first, intuitive thought is: nothing can disturb the focus on the title. But he wants to talk to Khalid about it and decided to allow the player to take the decision.

“So I asked him: what do you want? He was clear. He wanted to play. He said he could give his grief a place until after the EC. He wanted to finish it. He was very clear about it. I asked him to tell this to the players, so they would know it’s wasn’t us making decisions for him.”

Dirk Kuyt: “We were on the pitch. There was no one else, no wind. So you could hear him very clearly. It was a bit eerie. He said: don’t feel sorry for me. I am in pain but I want to be treated normal. Let’s finish our mission… It made quite an impression on me.”

Kees Jansma: “In hindsight, people say we should have sent him home. And I understand that. But it wasn’t just Khalid who wanted to stay. Van der Sar and Van Nistelrooy made their case too. They didn’t want to disrupt the team. They felt they needed to support Khalid, as one does in a team. They didn’t want to break it up. When Khalid said he wanted to stay, both Edwin and Ruud said: then he stays!”

Slowly, the players’ group re-establish a new process. Boulah wants to be treated “normal”… well, then he will be.

Everyone realizes that it doesn’t make sense for 22 players to console one players all the time. Boulah’s best buddies – Afellay, Van Persie and De Jong – are the ones giving extra support.

Ibi Afellay: “I tried to do what I could. You know, just by being there for him. What else can you do?”

Van Basten: “In my view, nothing really changed in football terms. We knew which eleven we wanted to play and Khalid trained really well and focused. I wanted him to start, based on that. I did check on him more often and observed him in the group a bit more.”

One thing, the team needs to discuss. Will Oranje wear a black mourning band around the arms? Will they ask the UEFA for one minute of silence?

Jansma: “I think the family wanted one minute silence, but at the same time every one realized it would draw too much attention and impact the game too much.”

The players, with Sar and Ruud van Gol as spokesmen, do feel a mourning band is the right thing to do. The players wanted to show the world they’re a team and all felt the pain and loss of their buddy.

Hans Jorritsma: “I always have them in the standard equipment kit of Oranje, although you hope you never need them….”

In the last seconds before the match, Robben injures his groin. The only player with speed and depth in his game is out. Robben was a crucial pawn in Van Basten’s gameplan.

Hiddink, Russia’s coach, has analyzed Oranje in detail. He has spotted many “lesser situations” in the Oranje games and uses these to prepare his players.

Hiddink wants his playmaker Arshavin to play inbetween the lines (between defense and midfield of Oranje). He also decides to allow Boulah to build up. This is his weakest point. Sport psychologist Afke van der Wouw after the match. “Players who just went through a “big life event” can be still strong mentally, but their physical condition suffered a blow. I could tell watching Boulah that the will was there, but the body wasn’t.”

Coincidence or not. Boulahrouz has to leave the pitch after 54 minutes with an injury.

Everyone has his own ideas about the decisions made. Boulah himself still stands by his own decisions. He feels supported by the many condolences hreceived, from prime minister Balkenende to the Italian football team.

Guus Hiddink wouldn’t have done much different in a similar situation, he says. “I would have allowed the player to decide, but I would have tried to create a situation for all to express our grief.

“Mourning is something you do in an intimate atmosphere, I think. Or do you really want the world to witness? I would have gone for an intimate ceremony, with the group and the families. I wouldn’t have worn the mourning black bands around the arm. But Marco must have had his reasons to do so.

Kees Jansma: “Looking back, for us it was a family tournament. All players are still relatively young or have young kids. There was always family close by on the stands. And Khalid had a weird starting situation. He was called up from nowhere, only to be told he wasn’t needed. And when Babel got injured, Marco called him back. He came from far. You wanted to focus on the games, but it wasn’t possible anymore. How can you? This sort of happens to you and that’s it.”

Van Basten doesn’t feel there is one way to deal with this. “If this would happen again, you’d have to take the circumstances into account and make a decision. There is no standard way of dealing with it. You need to analyse the situation, than check what your gut feels says, discuss it with the key people and make a decision. You can debate about it for ever… I do feel we did the right thing.”

“You know how it is. If we would have beaten Russia, people would have said: they did it for Khalid and it made them stronger. Such a situation could potentially even be a beautiful experience. Personally, I think the absence of Arjen Robben was the real clincher in football terms. And a football match is obviously more than technical and tactical aspects, but that’s where it starts.”

Tags: Boulahrouz, Group C, Hiddink, Kuyt, Nistelrooy, Oranje, Robben, Sar, Van Basten

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Comments

By chatchat | December 25th, 2008 at 4:01 pm

I 100% agree with Marco. The absence of Arjen Robben was the real reason Oranje lost to Russia!

Merry Chritsmas and Happy 2009, Jan! Thanks again for the wondeful blog!

Posted from United States

By Jan | December 25th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

I’m sorry, as much as I admire Marco I don’t think he gets it.

How can you say you lost due to one player not being available. Robben didn’t start against Italy and France either, did he?

I think Marco still underestimates the impact of what happened. He clearly overestimates technical and tactical aspects “being the foundation”. I don’t believe that either. I think the foundation is: physical fitness, mental fitness.

I’ve seen many mediocre teams beat better teams on the basis of those two aspects.

The fact that Marco claims he didn’t think it was serious and that he wanted to finish watching the Sweden game says it all.

Marco is cold as ice (a good trait for a coach) but in this case someone like Hiddink or Rijkaard was needed. Warmth, passion, togetherness…

I still stand by my theory that the Khalid drama crushed the team’s spirit (as in: how important is all this stuff really??).

By Felipe | December 25th, 2008 at 8:04 pm

Jan, I don’t think Boulah’s tragedy was THE FACTOR which messed up Oranje’s fairytale at Bern. There were others, like Arshavin’s performance, our weak defense (yeah, weak. That’s not because they played seriously at The Group of Death that they became world-class players), some arrogance…

But undoubtely it “helped” the bad finish of the dream. Mainly Khalid. As he said, he had already faced another tragedy in his family (since his dad’s death he got to help all his brothers and mother). Anissa’s matter was hugely difficult. I agree that he should have been taken off from the roster. His spirit was fully gone.

PS: And I even thought “We’re gonna win, we’ve got to win, we have to make it for Boulah, for Sadia, for Anissa!” Complete anticlimax

By Carlos | December 25th, 2008 at 8:05 pm

I agree with Jan in that the whole tragedy played a big part in the mental state of the players. Had it been played 2 days earlier or a week later, things would have been different. Mental state is just so important for all the players. Then ask me would I have preferred to lose the cup for Holland and have seen Boulah’s daughter live …..well you dont even have to ask do you ? and thats the state the players mind were in continuously whilst they were playing. Even now I still feel for Boulah & Wife ! Especially when you look at his face on the pic of the story – so sad and he is NOT thinking of how he is going to tackle his opponent, his mind is elsewhere. Guys I’ve been there (played a first grade rugby game 3 days after my father passed away, I needed to be with mates and get my mind off such an early loss – we lost I played lousy !!) and when you think of it….It’s just a game !

Posted from Singapore

By chatchat | December 25th, 2008 at 8:39 pm

I beg to differ. Robben didn’t play the Italy game but Engelaar played well in that game and the Oranje benefited from the injury of Cannavaro.
Azzurri’s defense was definitely undermined because of this.

As to the Holland France game, we all saw the difference Robben made after he replaced Engelaar: one set up and one goal.

From the game France game, we already saw how fragile the Oranje defense system was. What Van Basten did was basically use attack to defend and he succeeded.

However, in the Russia game, with the absence of Robeen his tactics didn’t work anymore. The game was a draw in the first 90 minutes. But if Robben had been available, the balance of the victory would have tipped to the Oranje side.

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By finnster01 | December 25th, 2008 at 8:51 pm

Difficult not to feel for Boulah and his family at Christmas. They must surely be struggling at this time of year.

Having said that, we all need to move on, including us Oranje fans. I’m trying my best to put the Russia game behind me once and for all. I know I and the rest of you guys never will be completely successful at that, no matter how much we try, but as Carlos so eloquently says, it is only a game. Another year, another set of challenges.

Lets look forward to qualifying for WC2010, take the positives from EC2008 (and there were many)into the tournament and learn from the mistakes that were made. Everybody makes mistakes, certainly Van Basten, but as long as you learn from the mistakes, they may be very useful.

What I do not accept is making the same mistake twice. Lets make sure the squad is better prepared in WC2010, can better deal with adversity and tragedy, better trained and rested after the gruelling euro club season, make sure the players are properly monitored in training, so we can avoid some of the silly injuries we got before the EC2008 even started.

By Jan | December 25th, 2008 at 11:04 pm

Well said Finn… I shouldn’t go on about it, but I want to say one more thing…

When the group started preparing for the EC, they came into this flow. The big wins over Italy and France – and I’ve seen the matches, it could have gone differently I know! – and the win over Romania, there was a distinct flow. A focus and a feeling of being bullet proof.

When Anissa died, that was crashed. Not just for Khalid, for all. Some players missed their rest and preparation routine, most players would have slept badly. When someone loses someone close, others also start to get memories back from their loved ones that died, etc etc.

To say it simply: the flow was interrupted.

In top football, the difference between top and “almost” is only a couple of %… Being half a yard too late, or a split second not in the zone will lose you matches. Sure, our defense looked weak, but that was the result of our whole team not being in the zone. When the forwards don’t press in time, it looks like our backs are too slow or our central backs allow too much space, to give just one example.

The winning streak had left. With or without Robben. Is my personal opinion.

But you’re right…we should move on.

We didn’t lose because we were not good enough, so much is clear to me at least…

By Miguel Rosado | December 25th, 2008 at 11:33 pm

Name by name we have a much better team than Russia that’s why I don’t think Robben’s injury was the main reason. I don’t know if it was Boulah’s tragedy but I know for sure that our players were not focused that day.

In all our previos games you could notice how our forwards and midfielders were desperate to get the ball back as soon as possible but against Russia they waited in the own half giving the Russia team the time and room enough to do whatever they wanted.

By Mario | December 26th, 2008 at 3:17 am

Guys:

Boulahrouz´s tragedy is a big reason why Oranje failed versus Russia but in my personal opinion I do think that players like Sneijder, van Persie, Heitinga, Afellay, De Jong and mainly the whole team gained so much confidence after the first round that they lost ground.

We can remember an unexperienced van Persie at the World Cup just as an example and at EC 2008 he was more mature just like many other players. We only had van der Sar and Ruud as veterans but I think that our young squad including the coach didn´t know how to handle the success of the first round because it was so unexpected that for me they thought that easily they would be in the final and win the tournament. We as fans all thought that…I mean, they played so well and crashed Italy and France in such a manner that Russia seemed an easy game. And I am sure the players thought that too and they relaxed and didn´t play with the passion that Russia had and if we add what happened to Boulahrouz the chemistry for that game was not the right one.

We are 10,000 times better that Russia and Arshavin isn´t even close to be the player they all say but Holland lacked concentration in that game and he seemed to be an amazing player but if we analyze he hasn´t done anything special after Euro 2008 and versus Spain he was invisible. Anyway, Arshavin who is the best player they have isn´t even close to Sneijder, van Persie or Robben level.

The players and the coaches were so surprised after first round and did not know how to handle that eufhoria and feelings and we also were more and more out of focus after what happened with Khalid´s daughter. Like some of you have said, if that game would have been played in a different date we would have won for sure.

Learning from that: never again let success go to your head, take our rivals seriously and when a player is suffering or disturbing the goal of the team is better to separate him from the group so all the players can keep their head on the objective. But mainly, the best thing to do is take every game as a final and with respect for every rival because even if you kill the World Champions you don´t become champion if you don´t get to the final and win it. Every game and every rival counts and Holland thought that Russia´s game would be a piece of cake and they were so wrong and that is why we lost…Robben´s, Boulah´s or any other theory of course are reasons but I have already mentioned why I think we failed.

By Jan | December 26th, 2008 at 6:44 am

Still, one injured player is exactly that: one injured player. That’s part of the game. That’s why you have 22 players. Wesley or Robin wouldn’t lose sleep over Robben being injured.

But having a mate lose a baby is something that is literally unthinkable. You can’t “remove the player and keep on focusing”… Most of these guys are friends! The wives hang out, the kids know each other. When Khalid was in London with Chelsea, Van Persie and Babel were his best buddies.

Let’s face it: Oranje is in a flow and suddenly the focus is gone. Hint: two days before the game a player loses a child… Hmmm….that good be it, then…

I do believe Oranje always runs the risk of being too cocky, but I didn’t really see any signs this time around…

By lowiesje | December 26th, 2008 at 7:33 am

@Jan, I agree. If you think of it… to ”blame” Robben for the loss of the Russia-game is a lame excuse. Why can’t MvB admit the technical staff and he made a error judgement? Why doesn’t he say: “We should have send Boulah home, we, the technical staff and I, should have protected Boulah for himself, and us, so we and the other players could have been focused on the Russia-game.” Of course, it is not a guaranty the outcome of the game would have been different, but, I mean, did Mvb learn something of this tragedy? Isn’t there any self-reflection?

Posted from Netherlands

By chatchat | December 26th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

The tragedy doesn’t disappear just because you send the victim home. Wesley or Robin will still lose their sleep at night.

As to Robben’s importance, I think it’s fair to say without him Oranje would have tied or lost to France in EC. For 30 minute in the first half, the Oranje defense system almost disappeared except for Van der Sar.
The situation only improved after Robben was sent to the pitch to replace Engelaar. He soon assisted Van Persie’s goal then scored himself right after Henry’s goal. He literally subdued the French side by doing that.

Van Basten admitted “we made constructive mistakes” after the France game, in spite of the overwhelming praises. So I don’t think Oranje became arrogant after the first three victories. They practiced penalty kicks specially before the Russia game. What does that tell you?

Arshavin played well in both the Holland and Sweden games. He is a great player, not a one-game wonder. Why was he invisible in the Spain game? Simple because of the strong Spanish defense system. They controlled the ball most of the time which was in sharp contrast to the way Oranje played. I noticed that when a Russian defender tried to pass the ball to their teammates in the front, 90% of the time it was intercepted by a Spanish defender (often Ramos). If Oranje could defend like that they would win the title because they are better at attacking than the Spaniards.

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By Jess | December 26th, 2008 at 12:27 pm

My heart still breaks over this story. I often wonder if Boulahrouz will carry a lifetime of guilt over this. Not being able to help his daughter and then the added guilt of thinking maybe his loss cost his team the cup. I don’t think Van Basten thought the possible consequences of his decisions out. He shouldn’t have allowed him to make the decision. no one can make a good clear thinking choices amongst that much grief. That’s why Van Basten was there to make the tough choices. There will be other games, other teams, other cups but Boulah will never have “another” baby to replace the one he lost. I think that is the real factor Marco missed. God Bless the Boulahrouz family this year!

By chatchat | December 26th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

There is no way Boula’s loss costed Oranje the cup. Even if the Oranje defeated Russia, they couldn’t defeat Spain. Final four is the best result for them.

Posted from United States

By Michel-Olivier | December 26th, 2008 at 12:56 pm

we lost because ooijer and gio can’t play for 90+ min, heitinga should of stay in the bench and robben couldn’t play.

the only reson we beat france and italy was because of an der Sar, wesley, ruud(the guy was awesome, he played like a playmaker), and robben. plus italy and france had an old back four.

please watch the game again or the goals oijer and gio did nothing.

Posted from United States

By Michel-Olivier | December 26th, 2008 at 1:07 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LEtfMHlO6g
Russia – Netherlands

Posted from United States

By Alex | December 26th, 2008 at 2:03 pm

The biggest mistake v.Basten made was putting Heitinga on the bench when he just had the best season ever. With Ooijer still in center we had an enormous amount of luck, the only reason we got through safely is V.d.Sar.
I thought the defence against Romania was the most consistent and the strongest defending performance of the three games. And how come, the back four actually contained the best actual defenders in the squad, instead of an old center back and an left midfielder.
It was; Boulahrouz-Heitinga-Mathijsen-Bouma, and what would you know, we won with a clean sheet, and we didn’t even have V.d.Sar in goal, but Stekelenburg. I think V.Basten still hadn’t figured out what our best defenders were, while i thought it was obvious.

Posted from Netherlands

By Michel-Olivier :) | December 26th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

if we played “Boulahrouz-Heitinga-Mathijsen-Bouma” we would beat of russia.
the worst sub was when marco played heitinga in rb for boulah instead of replacing ooijer.

Posted from United States

By chatchat | December 26th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

Boulah was replaced because he’d got a yellow card! Marco was afraid he would get another one then oranje would play with 10 people.

One reason oranje defense looked good in the Romania game was their offence was not so good.

Posted from United States

By Alex | December 27th, 2008 at 10:28 am

The Romania offence performed no less then the italians and the french. That’s no argument, Henry, Benzema, Del Piero etc. weren’t exactly performing very well. I’m just saying our defence looked more comfortable and less dependant of V.d.Sar.

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